Invincible Summer by Hannah Moskowitz
Recommended.

I hesitated a moment about whether or not to put Hannah Moskowtiz’ upcoming sophomore novel Invincible Summer on my recommended shelf. I had two niggling, persistent concerns with the book (which I’ll discuss a bit later) that nearly eclipsed my enjoyment of it. However, at its core it’s an emotionally effective, stirring read, told in a style that’s at times both nicely sparse and poetic. Contrary to the impression given by its cover, it’s a dark tale of familial implosion, and it takes some formal risks that pay off in a big way. I think I’d be a fool not to recommend that you buy a copy when it’s released this April.

Told over the course of four adolescent summers, Invincible Summer is the story of Chase McGill, a teenage boy clinging both to his fading childhood and his family as both unravel on the mid-Atlantic coast. The McGill clan was changed with the birth of youngest brother Gideon, who is profoundly deaf. At the start of the book, Chase’s oldest brother, Noah, spends most of his time escaping his familial duties. His tween sister Claudia seems to be in a big hurry to grow up. And his parents, though they eagerly await the birth of their fifth child, spend most of their time arguing. Only Chase clings to the image of his family as they once were—whole and happy. But through the novel’s development, as Chase comes of age sexually and emotionally, he learns how impossible it is to stay eternally a child.

It’s in the central misery of this large, loud family that Moskowitz best shines as a writer. I’ll say again that this is a very dark book, but the way it describes dysfunction, grief, and growth are unflinchingly accurate. If you’re a fan of movies like Closer or Ghost World—unapologetic movies about messy human relationships—you’ll enjoy Invincible Summer. I had the same kind of lump in my throat as I read it that I did when I watched Blue Valentine. Through both, you know what’s going to happen, and can see the way the events are piling up toward a terrible inevitability, but you still foolishly, vainly hope for the best. In this way, Moskowitz forces us to be like Chase. It’s not always a comfortable way to be, but it certainly gives her book resonance.

Chase’s voice is naturally adolescent, and the way he describes the beach setting is nice and artful without being overdone. However, I was never fully convinced of his voice as a teenage boy. Generally, I’m willing to suspend disbelief when female writers tackle male narrators, but something almost intangible about Chase’s verbal equivocations and, particularly, the way he regards his brother Noah felt off. This style of narration would have been painfully and perfectly accurate voice for a teenage girl (though that would have made the love triangle . . . interesting!). For whatever reason, I was never really swayed by Chase.

Likewise, I never quite bought the family’s obsession with Camus, which touched every one of the children and spanned four summers. Unlike some reviewers, I don’t have a problem with Camus generally (in fact, I loved The Stranger as a teen!). It was more the scope and depth of this obsession that I had trouble with. I was a pretentious teenager, and friends with pretentious teenagers. I even minored in philosophy in college! But in all of my encounters with epic, philosophical bullshitters, I never encountered anything like what I saw in Invincible Summer. We memorized things (snippets of philosophy, Beat poetry) but not with the apparent rigor and fervor of Noah and Chase. When it came down to it, I never believed that these boys would have such a body of work fully memorized, and that they would be prepared to drop quotes at a moment’s notice. And that this obsession would last four summers. By the end, when an eight-year-old is reading Camus before bed, and when the teenage sister who previously rolled her eyes at her brothers starts joining in and reading passages, I began to grow tired of it. I felt that Camus’ omnipresence here became a genuine deterrent from enjoying an otherwise devastating conclusion to a generally devastating book.

(There were some brief mentions of both Plato and JM Barrie, which were summarily dismissed. Too bad. A little more Plato would have been pretty good. Refreshing. Barrie, too. Ah well.)

Still, Moskowitz’s book made me feel something, and feel it pretty deeply. The innovative form, letting us visit Chase only during his summers on the beach, was an effective way at exploring the brevity of one’s teen years, and Moskowitz was unafraid of showing us the uglier side of her characters. This kind of honesty—this frankness–is dearly needed in literature, especially in literature for teens, whether or not it’s served with a liberal sprinkling of French existentialism.

Disclosure: A galley of this volume was provided by the publisher for review purposes.

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Note: I know Thursdays are supposed to be my non-book-related blogging day, but I’m thisclose to finishing Daughter of Earth and my brain is all mushy and useless. Luckily, I’ve been reading a ton (words beget words!), so I have some reviews in the hopper. Of books I’ve enjoyed! I hope I don’t lose my street cred. Ahem.

A Long, Long Sleep by Anna Sheehan
Recommended.

It wasn’t until the halfway point of Anna Sheehan’s upcoming debut A Long, Long Sleep that it won me over. Initially, I feared that this science fictional retelling of Sleeping Beauty was little more than yet another entry in a long list of limp YA sci-fi novels. After all, the writing seemed to be on the wall. As was the case in XVI and Awaken (a book I didn’t even bother finishing), Sheehan includes a liberal sprinkling of FutureWords™; I worried that this would be yet another stand-in for genuine world building. And, as was true for both Delirium and Matched, Sheehan’s heroine, Rose, was quite passive and bland through the first hundred pages of the novel.

Then I reached what amounted to an extended IM conversation between Rose and a half-alien hybrid, and I realized how utterly charming I found her characters—and how much I was genuinely enjoying her book.

I’m getting ahead of myself, though. A Long, Long Sleep is the story of Rosalinda Fitzroy, the daughter of a power-couple who own a massive, multinational corporation at some distant point in the future (our era is, at one point, referred to as “the Gates era,” a conceit I found pretty cute). Because Mommy and Daddy frequently jet-set around the solar system, they decide to stow Rose away in a stasis chamber, saving her from the horror of being a latch-key kid. Of course, this has the unfortunate side effect of prolonging her childhood exponentially. On those rare occasions when she’s let out, she slowly comes to befriend, and then fall in love with, a neighbor-boy in a time-shifted romance that somewhat resembles Audrey Niffenger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife.

Unfortunately, her parents kick the bucket, and she gets left frozen for more than sixty years, neatly ending their nascent romance.

Most of this is told in flashback. The narrative begins when Rose is awakened by a strange boy who stumbles across her in a basement. She’s emaciated, her body ravaged by the effects of stasis. But the doctors cobble her back together well enough that she’s able to go to school, in the hopes that she’ll one day be able to take over the massive conglomerate she’s inherited.

Of course, the current stakeholders aren’t so pleased with this new development. While Rose is distracted with several boys (including one really awesome kinda alien named Otto; more on him below), someone is plotting to kill her . . .

In recounting this basic synopsis, I can’t help but be pleased by how fundamentally SFnal Sheehan’s premise is. This is definitely soft-SF, and the romance and love squares (love rhombuses?) are unlikely to appeal to hard SF readers or, frankly, boys. Still, the science fiction conceits are absolutely central to the premise, and the way Sheehan explores both stasis technology and genetic engineering shows real consideration for the complexities of both. While a lot of softer SF for teens these days is utterly hand wavy, Sheehan’s world is, instead, largely thoughtfully crafted. There’s some silly stuff here (an apocalypse caused by genetically modified corn; telepathy), but these are forgivable world-building sins when viewed in light of all the things that Sheehan gets right.

And she gets nothing righter than her characters. Rose herself is a somewhat difficult narrator. She starts the story as a bit of a poor little rich girl, and initially I hesitated over her strangely elevated diction. But this, as well as her passivity at the outset, are both well-explained given her background. After all, she’s a fabulously wealthy artiste (a trait that’s actually relevant, and not just an informed ability), and so I can forgive her, or at least understand, when she describes someone’s voice as “warm as a brown leather sofa.” And unlike all of the Bella Swan clones out there, the blander notes of her personality are, in fact, seen as flaws—the result of an abusive childhood. Unusual for the genre, Rose must display actual growth in order to thrive in her new environment.

More, Sheehan gives us not only a relatable narrator and main character, but also a host of well-developed, believable, and well-rounded male characters. Her romance with Xavier is described lovingly and touchingly; the crush she develops on her rescuer, Bren, is understandable and interesting and thorny. For once, a boy doesn’t just fall at our heroine’s feet!

But my favorite was easily Otto, a genetically engineered mutant owned by Rosalinda’s corporation. I must admit that I’m a sucker for alien romances (weird, I know), but Otto was so well-rendered that I suspect I’d feel this way regardless. His presence enables Sheehan to explore the ramifications of Rose’s wealth in an interesting way—the girl learns that she actually owns this mute, telepathic boy, and that she might someday be able to grant him his freedom. But, more, the friendship that grows between them is one of the more interesting ones I’ve seen in recent YA. I groaned a bit internally when I first saw that Sheehan was going to subject us to their IM conversations. Then I realized that these two characters interacted with such vitality and chemistry that I’d gladly read a whole book of their chat logs. Seriously (and I never say this sort of thing), Team Otto, all the way.

In the end, A Long, Long Sleep is the sort of lighter sci-fi fare that I think we need in YA right now. Though it might not be the most artistically daring novel I’ve read in ages, it’s solid, treats its characters respectfully, rather than as simple tools at the mercy of the plot, and it explores the logical ramifications of its central premises. It’s a thoughtful book, with a strong emotional undercurrent about loss and abuse. We’re set up for a second volume (though this one also gives us a satisfying conclusion), and I’m curious to see where Sheehan takes us next.

Disclosure: I received a copy of this book for review purposes from the publisher and netgalley.com.

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Unearthly by Cynthia Hand

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Just a warning: I’m about to get hyperbolic and all sorts of excited about a YA paranormal romance about angels.

For those who know me, that might seem odd. I tend to be really, really picky about paranormal romance for teens unless it’s bad-ass and clearly Buffy-inspired (we’re talking Diana Peterfreund’s killer unicorn books, or L. J. Smith’s Night World series). And generally, angels are just conceptually too fluffy for me. What’s more, I’m not even vaguely Christian—at best, I’m a Jew, but really I’m more of a Godless agnostic. And so you might guess that fantasy firmly grounded in Christian mythology would miss the mark for me.

You’d be wrong.

The truth is, part of me has been waiting for a long time for a good angel book. Blame my pre-teen K-mart book habit. When I was eleven or twelve, my mom picked me up a copy of a book by Jahnna N. Malcolm and Laura Young called Rebel Angels. I don’t really remember anything about the book itself, but I do remember the cover—the neon sunset, the rebel-jacket-clad angel boy on the front and how the image sparked some note of excitement in my pubescent little brain. I was also a weirdly big fan of the mostly-terrible John Travolta flick, Michael. So, despite my areligious leanings, the same part of myself that would love an old Lisa Frank Trapper Keeper for nostalgia’s sake (do you know how hard they are to find?!) has been waiting for a really juicy angel book.

I didn’t find it with Becca Fitzpatrick’s Hush, Hush. I didn’t find it with Lauren Kate’s Fallen (which I didn’t even finish). But Cynthia Hand’s debut Unearthly finally delivered.

I’ll admit, the premise is silly in places. Teen girl Clara learned she was a quarter-angel a few years ago and has been eagerly awaiting the arrival of her “purpose” ever since. When it finally comes, it’s in the form of a vision: she’s supposed to save a boy in Wyoming from a forest fire. Her family—Clara, her half-angel mom, and her brother—up and leave their California home for more mountainous pastures. There, she deals with integrating into a new school; getting to know Christian, the boy she’s destined to save; and her growing awareness of the war between the good fallen angels (whose wings are white) and the evil, black-winged Black Wings.

Sigh. I know, guys, I know—it’s totally simplistic and cheesy to color-code your characters’ morality like that. But this is a book about angels, anyway—I hope you weren’t expecting a total lack of cheesiness, because I’d be disappointed if this book took itself completely seriously. And I’m telling you, it’s worth it to look past the silliness here because Unearthly manages to rise above it and present a truly compelling read, with really well-done characters.

Clara is believable as a teenage girl with a purpose. She’s not always likable—in fact, she’s a bit self-centered and short-sighted—but she truly is empathetic. You feel for her when she talks about how she misses her father, or how she feels bad about the unfair advantages her super powers give her, or how hard it is to choose between the boy she loves and the boy she’s supposed to save.

That’s right—there’s a love triangle here. Clara’s supposed to save cute, popular, rich-kid Christian, but instead ends up falling for cute, popular, poor-kid Tucker, her best friend’s brother. And both of these relationships are handled in a complex and interesting way. I can’t even say who I was really rooting for—either choice would be good; both have their problems. Two well-rendered boys who seem to be an equally appealing and equally flawed? To the point where it’s not easy to pick and choose a simple “team” to emblazon on your t-shirt? Why, it’s almost unheard of these days in YA.

It’s also awesome.

Hand doesn’t futz up her relationships between women, either. Clara has two best friends: half-angel Angela, and human Wendy. And while there are sometimes arguments and tensions between the girls, these relationships are still stunningly real, complex, and supportive. I expected one of them to be turned into a slutty stereotype or a villain or a catty mean girl, but they’re not—and even the school’s queen bee character is somewhat likable and fairly sympathetic. And Clara’s relationship with her mother—who teaches her how to be an angel, and supports her in finding her purpose, but still doesn’t quite understand her or respect her as an equal—is one of the most believable mother-daughter relationships I’ve seen in a long time.

And speaking of realism, while this isn’t a Christian novel per se, it’s the first YA angel book I’ve read that actually acknowledges the existence of religion and Christianity beyond an appropriation of mythology and tropes. It’s done in a subtle, but realistic way, and the book is better for the acknowledgement of the religious questions that teens–particularly supernatural angel teens–face in their daily lives.

Finally, amidst all of this, Hand’s writing is crisp, efficient, and uncluttered. Unearthly is written in present tense; I’m not usually a fan of present-tense novels, but she renders Clara’s narration in an effortless, unobtrusive way. The writing is at times pretty, but never overwritten, and there’s none of the adverbial mess you find with less capable writers of YA paranormal.

In sum, Unearthly is the accomplished and compelling story of a girl coming into her powers as a woman, written respectfully, and well. For any reader who has been longing for an angel story that satisfies without reservation (and really, who hasn’t been longing for that?), I’d highly recommend it.

Disclosure: I received a review copy of this book from netgalley.com.

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Delirium by Lauren Oliver

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I was really excited to pick up an e-ARC of Lauren Oliver’s Delirium on netgalley, as her first book, Before I Fall is one of my crit group member Shannon’s all-time faves.

On a prose level, I can certainly understand her fondness for Oliver’s writing. It is very pretty and well-controlled, full of the sort of stylistic flourishes often absent in young adult literature. This was especially true in terms of her descriptions of the natural and man-made landscapes of the book. Delirium is set in a near-future version of Portland, Maine, and I almost felt like I’d been vacationing there by the time the book was finished. It’s a very well-described setting.

Unfortunately, other aspects of the world building, and many other aspects of the plot, fell flat for me.

My first problem was with the premise at large. This is a dystopian novel, and it opens with an extended infodump establishing our universe: in the future, a cure for love has been found, and with it, a host of mental disorders and crimes have been eliminated, too. At the age of eighteen (and not a moment sooner, we’re told, for fear of ill health effects—though this guideline is later broken without more than a slight nod of acknowledgement), all citizens are put through a “procedure” (a partial lobotomy, really), which cures them of all forms of love, from romantic infatuation to filial affection. The resulting population is peacefully matched to their future spouses, and, I suppose, the reader is supposed to be horrified.

I had issues with this infodump as a narrative device—I think it’s always a little bland to start a book this way—but I would have abided by it if Oliver had built something truly terrifying with her premise. But instead of seeming scary, our heroine Magdalena’s world just seemed simply implausible to me. I think this premise is indicative of a larger problem with YA dystopians: they often seem to be forming arguments in opposition to criticisms that no one has made. If we’re to look at humanity, historically, and as we know it today, I find it exceedingly difficult to believe that anyone would line up for procedures which “cure” them of love, as the narration tells us has happened in this society—particularly as Lena’s society is nominally somewhat Christian, a religion which at least in its modern form pays a great deal of lip service to the importance of love. Further, there’s no inciting incident—the formation of a political dictatorship, for example; or some sort of plague or war that leaves humanity vulnerable—to really justify this sort of philosophical sea change. We see hints of some political despotism; there are raids of homes and all citizens are constantly monitored. But these tropes go unexplored and when they are described in any depth, it’s somewhat limply. Perhaps Oliver is holding out for the second and third volume in this series to give us any deeper answers, but I found that it contributed to this volume’s failure when added to the more pervasive problems.

What’s worse, though (as I said above) what we have of the setting is beautifully described, it’s written in a way that is entirely too contemporary for my tastes. Bear in mind that I don’t dislike near-future political science fiction. When used correctly, I think contemporaneous details can contribute to the richness of a dystopian text. Take, for example, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. In Atwood’s novel, the accuracy of details makes it easy to see how her society advanced from one very much like ours to an absolutely stifling dystopian world. Sadly, the details of Delirium do none of that. Lena runs for her high school track team; her friend downloads music illegally. I found neither of these details, or any of the others like it, to be particularly incisive enough to create those sorts of logical links between our world and a terrifying future. Instead I found myself wondering if perhaps Oliver simply lacked the imagination to create an accurately vivid world herself.

She tries. I know that she did because she utilizes an interesting narrative device, starting each chapter with a fictional piece of literature from her society, an excerpt from one of their handbooks for children or history texts or perhaps a prayer. But these, too, fail to coalesce into any deeper, more meaningful message. There was a vague anti-science message that I had a bit of trouble parsing—one prayer is a recitation of the periodic table, and there are references to how the church and science have merged to form a “New Religion, which teaches the Holy Trinity of God, Science, and Order.” I’m not entirely sure why, but I suspect this was supposed to be scary. But I don’t find the periodic table, even if told in nursery-rhyme form, particularly scary, and if the message is that we’re supposed to be scared of scientists who want to give us lobotomies, well then, yeah, clearly.

Finally, though Lena’s voice is well-done (if a bit of an Everygirl), and some of the supporting characters vividly rendered, I found Alex, the love interest, the most important character to get right in a book about star-crossed lovers, to be utterly bland. He’s cute. He and Lena kiss. He recites poetry. But other than that, I have no idea who he is, and why he’s so special.

Maybe that’s sort of the point. There’s a recurring thread here about Romeo and Juliet. In Lena’s repressed society, it’s taught as a “cautionary tale” about the dangers of love. When Alex hears that, he laughs and says it’s a great love story. The only problem with that is, of course, to call Romeo and Juliet naught but a great love story is to oversimplify. It is a cautionary tale—about blood feuds—and the capriciousness of Romeo’s emotions, particularly, and the fool-heartedness of both Romeo and Juliet are also important themes. Of course, that’s not how Romeo and Juliet are often perceived by high schoolers. Many see it in reductive, over-simplistic terms (see also: how Bella and Edward interpret it in New Moon), which is how they often see love, too, throwing themselves into it whole heartedly even with people who aren’t that interesting.

If that was really Oliver’s point, then I think it’s a provocative one for a modern YA author to make. However, if that was her point, I really wish she would have shared it with her audience.

Disclosure: I received a copy of this book for review purposes from netgalley.com

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